Positive Psychology and Humanistic Psychology: A Reply to Seligman

Arguments in the current debate between “positive psychology” and humanistic psychology are reviewed with particular emphasis on Martin Seligman’s comment that humanistic psychologists do not represent “positive psychology” because they have generated no research tradition, are narcissistic, and are antiscientific. Each one of these claims is dispelled with specific references to the larger humanistic tradition in American psychology, which includes the psychology of William James; the personality-social psychologists of the 1930s and 1940s, such as Allport, Murray, and Murphy; and the humanistic psychologists, per se, of the 1950s and 1960s. Additional examples of how mainstream cognitive-behaviorism has continued to preempt humanistic and transpersonal psychology are also given. The conclusion, however, is that Seligman may be rushing to exclude on a priori grounds the very tradition his own theory represents.